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Relationships

Mumsnet has not checked the qualifications of anyone posting here. If you need help urgently or expert advice, please see our domestic violence webguide and/or relationships webguide. Many Mumsnetters experiencing domestic abuse have found this thread helpful: Listen up, everybody

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Original poster

Is our relationship doomed?

79 replies

Catrin80 · 12/05/2014 13:45

Hi, I posted a few days ago about my partner wanting me to leave his house, but stay together.

Brief recap; we have only been together for two months but had already talked about moving in together, which was his suggestion. He seemed really keen and planning the future, then I went to stay the weekend with my three children and we argued loads, due to stress on my part caused by other issues I was having to deal with at the time. He said it might be better not to move in together just yet, I agreed, and then my ex attacked me one night at home and when I told my partner as I was really shaken up, he said he would pick us up that night and we would live with him...but if he or I couldn't handle it at any point, I would have to make alternative arrangements.

Anyway.

We have argued a lot...well, bickered with a couple of massive rows thrown in, caused by me and where I said some awful, hurtful things that have stayed with him. He is worried I am using him for somewhere to stay (not true at all) but says he still loves me more than anything, wants to stay together but I need to get my own place so he can have his space, get used to the idea of living together and build our relationship.

We talked last night. We haven't argued for the past couple of days and now his teenage daughter has come to live with him too. She has a few issues and part of the reason for asking me to leave, was so he could dedicate attention to her.
I like his daughter, she copes well with my children and helps look after them (just little things like talking to them if they're playing up, that kind of thing) and I seem to be getting on okay with her. She's a great kid.

When we talked last night, he said "I wanted everything to be perfect but I'm just rubbish. All the feelings I had for you are still there just the same, but the stresses of life get to me and make me say the wrong things".
He also said this situation is hard for him...I've been a single parent for seven years so am used to it, but he isn't and just the constant noise, people around all the time (it's a relatively small house) is difficult for him to handle. He says that even talking to me without children screaming in the background all the time is hard and he wishes he could just do that one small thing.

I asked how he can see me as often as he used to, with my children and now his daughter (who only came to live with him last weekend).
He reckons he can still see me 3-4 times a week and still stay over at my house, but I don't think he can as I have issues with him leaving his 13 year old, home alone while he does those things. Especially overnight.
I asked if he ever saw us living together and he said maybe in 6 months once we have built our relationship more and gets used to the idea of living together with the children and the noise, etc.

But in my mind, he's had two weeks so far to get used to it, and is likely to have a few more weeks of it because I can't move out right away, and he said I can stay until I find somewhere else.

What do you think, do you think that he will ever get used to the noise and having so many people around in order to allow us to live together in the future, or has his experience with us here now ruined our future?

OP posts:

bragmatic · 13/05/2014 01:06

He suggested it, with the caveat that you'd have to move out if it wasn't working.

It's not working. Move out.

EhricLovesTheBhrothers · 13/05/2014 06:41

He sounds as immature and ridiculous as you. So yes, it's doomed.

flappityfanjos · 13/05/2014 07:40

Then he had a bad idea, to move in his girlfriend and her family after two months, and in your shoes I would never have agreed to it beyond a very temporary emergency measure if I really couldn't stay where I was - I'd have started looking for somewhere else as soon as we'd got there. Honestly, I don't want to be rude but this was poor judgement on both your parts. It takes a lot longer to merge households like this when there are kids involved (and ideally even when they aren't!).

Someone you've been with for two months shouldn't really be playing this major a role in your life. You don't know each other well enough and you don't know whether those first new-person fluttery feelings will last. I just don't think you can do things on a whim like this when you need to provide a stable life for your kids.

AnyFucker · 13/05/2014 07:52

Why are you still there ? Have you even tried to find alternative accommodation ?

Do you think if you stay put long enough you will wear him down ? How is that healthy ?

Find somewhere else to go before this escalates horribly. At the moment it appears that you are invoking squatters rights. It doesn't matter what he said at the beginning, you were both mistaken to think this could work at all at this stage

AllThatGlistens · 13/05/2014 09:46

I think you need to understand that it doesn't matter how many times you post about this, you're not going to get the confirmation you want that says you're doing the right thing.

You're not. You moved your children in with a man you've only known for two months, and he's already asked you to leave.

Putting a permanent, stable roof over your DC's heads needs to be your priority, just as he needs to put his own children first.

Hopefully, for your children's sakes, this will start to sink in soon.

flappityfanjos · 13/05/2014 10:54

Feel like we're in Frozen:

MN - You moved in with someone you'd known for two months?
OP - It's true love!

Having reread your last post, OP, in your situation I'd actually be livid with a man who told my kids they were living with him permanently. The poor kids must feel like they're in a revolving door. There's no way on earth someone should be set up as a father figure, either by themselves or by you, when you have known them for two months. Try years and it might work out.

littleballerina · 13/05/2014 11:06

He took you in and it's not worked out.

If you want to try to save this relationship you need to back off a bit.
He's trying to do right by you and your dc. Do you want them to live in a house full of bickering?

NickiFury · 13/05/2014 11:06

If he did flappity. I think the OP would say anything at this point to justify staying put.

Original poster

Catrin80 · 13/05/2014 11:14

I'm not trying to stay out, I'm viewing houses but only have so much money to save each week.

OP posts:

Original poster

Catrin80 · 13/05/2014 11:14

Put. Not out.

OP posts:

eightyearsonhere · 13/05/2014 11:18

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

Original poster

Catrin80 · 13/05/2014 12:10

I've been single for 7 years. I don't jump from one relationship to another :/

OP posts:

EhricLovesTheBhrothers · 13/05/2014 12:12

so what made you jump feet first into this one?

Original poster

Catrin80 · 13/05/2014 12:15

We connected. The first time we went out, we both felt that chemistry that hadn't before. We felt totally comfortable with each other from the start, it didn't feel like a first date, it felt like we were an established couple. He said the same. In fact, he said it first.

Yesterday he said he feels like I am the first person he has truly loved and he knows I will be the last. I feel the same way.

And when I say arguing, it's more like bickering. It's always over in a few hours, never goes on for days on end but we do bicker almost daily, because the stress of the children being noisy and always around, his stuff being everywhere, my stuff being everywhere and no time alone...gets on top of us both.

OP posts:

EhricLovesTheBhrothers · 13/05/2014 12:18

but you have no solid foundation do you! There is literally nothing to build on. Apart from a 'feeling' you both had from the beginning, which was a chimera, a reflection in each other of your own need. There is no such thing as love at first date.

AnyFucker · 13/05/2014 12:21

But he wants you out, love. I am sorry, there is no kinder way to put it. And I sense he is trying to be kind too, which is diluting the message and is probably very wrong of him.

Viviennemary · 13/05/2014 12:22

You've only been together for two months. Far far too soon to move in together especially when children are involved. It sounds as if he means well and wants to help but just cant cope with a family moving in. You should make your own arrangements for housing your family. You can't exjpect this man to take on the responsibility after such a short time.

Original poster

Catrin80 · 13/05/2014 12:23

Well we still feel the same way, okay it's only been 8 weeks but still.

We had known each other online (he was a friend of a friend and we talked on Facebook every day) for 10 months before we met up. I disappeared a couple of times and in February, he decided he wasn't going to let me go again (his words) and so we met up.

We used to have day long conversations via Facebook, about everything.

And as I said, he says he still feels exactly the same as he did in the beginning, it's just the living together that isn't working.

OP posts:

Original poster

Catrin80 · 13/05/2014 12:25

He wants to stay together. He says he's worried that when I move out, he will never hear from me again.

In my op though I asked whether if I moved out and we stayed together, whether he might want to live together in the future again, seeing how he can't cope with it at the moment, will he ever be able to?

Does anyone have an opinion on that?

OP posts:

TalisaMaegyr · 13/05/2014 12:26

Ok, so I understand the connection thing. And I can understand the taking your chances with moving in - nothing ventured, nothing gained, right?

BUT - you argue all the time. That's not right for such a short relationship - I've been with my partner for 3 years now, and we've only argued on a couple of occasions in all that time. More to the point, he has changed his mind about you living together. He did forewarn you that things would have to change if that happened. You need to leave. If this was a woman saying that her DP wouldn't move out when she'd asked him to, people would tell her to call the police. Is there really not anywhere else you can go??

Viviennemary · 13/05/2014 12:28

Yes he might. When he gets to know you and your DC's better. It was just far too quick.

Jan45 · 13/05/2014 12:28

You can talk on FB for hours on end, it's still nothing like living together as a family.

Yes he might well be up for you and your 3 kids moving in with him, in the future, not 8 wks into a relationship, I really don't understand why you don't get this, it's common sense.

You seem determined to make it work even though you are now bickering every day over the fact you are living together, is it not obvious what needs to happen?

AnyFucker · 13/05/2014 12:28

I think never say never

But do the tried and tested route... Get to know someone properly first and don't be carried away on a wave of ridiculous soul mate romanticism. As you are finding to your cost, real life tends to get in the way of that.

gamerchick · 13/05/2014 12:32

Nobody can answer that.. its something that you'll have to wait and see about.

However I am certain that the longer you impose on his space when he clearly does not want you there at this time will kill your relationship stone dead and you could find yourself hoofed out with barely any time to sort yourself out. That is a practical certainty.

This is a blossoming relationship.. He isn't Reay for the family thing yet.

Original poster

Catrin80 · 13/05/2014 12:33

Hmm. See, the way I see it, is now he knows what the reality of living with my children is like. Even if we don't bicker, the children will still be noisy, and hyper, and all that kind of thing.

So however well we get to know each other, how can he change his mind on the children? Especially as at the moment we are living with him and when I move out, he will only see me and the children a couple of times a week at most.

But yes, I am trying to move out. I've applied as homeless to the council, they said it will take up to 4 weeks and they can only put me in a b&b. I can save 150 pounds a week if I don't buy food (partner says he will buy it but it'd have to be on his credit card) but it's 1500 to get a private rental, plus I need a guarantor. He says he will do that, too.

We've talked about this, today in fact. I'm not just sitting around sponging from him.

OP posts:

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